Liberia

PLOS PATHOGENS  by Marc-Antoine de La Vega,  Derek Stein, and GaryKopinger, University of Manitoba, Canada , Nov. 12, 2015    

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada The past year has marked the most devastating Ebola outbreak the world has ever witnessed, with over 28,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths. Ebola virus (EBOV) has now been around for almost 50 years. In this review, we discuss past and present outbreaks of EBOV and how those variants evolved over time. We explore and discuss selective pressures that drive the evolution of different Ebola variants, and how they may modify the efficacy of therapeutic treatments and vaccines currently being developed. Finally, given the unprecedented size and spread of the outbreak, as well as the extended period of replication in human hosts, specific attention is given to the 2014–2015 West African outbreak variant (Makona).

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http://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1005221

                                                   who.int                                                       ebolaresponse.un.org

Ebola Situation Reports:

CLICK HERE -WHO - Ebola Situation Report - 28 October 2015

CLICK HERE -  Interagency Collaboration on Ebola - Situation Report - 21 October 2015 (7 page .PDF report)

CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW - WHO - Report Archives
http://apps.who.int/ebola/ebola-situation-reports
http://apps.who.int/ebola/ebola-situation-reports-archive
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/archive/en/
http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.ebola-sitrep

submitted by George Hurlburt

Sierra Leonean doctors practice wearing protective clothing in the Ebola Training Academy in Freetown, Sierra Leone, December 16, 2014. Reuters

uk.reuters.com - by Kemo Cham and Emma Farge - October 21, 2015

. . . the case of Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey – the first known Ebola survivor to have an apparently life-threatening relapse – has revived concerns about the health of some 17,000 survivors in Sierra Leone, neighbouring Guinea and Liberia.

Doctors and health officials in Sierra Leone told Reuters that a handful of mystery deaths among discharged patients may also be types of Ebola relapses, stirring fear that the deadly virus may last far longer than previously thought in the body, causing other potentially lethal complications.

Diagnoses have not been made, partly because of a lack of relevant medical training and insufficient equipment for detecting a virus that can hide in inaccessible corners of the body - such as the spinal fluid or eyeball. In Cafferkey's case, the virus in her brain caused meningitis.

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submitted by Carrie La Jeunesse

nejm.org - October 14, 2015 - DOI: 10.1056/NEJMe1512928

The number of new cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in western Africa has declined from a peak of 1063 cases in the week of October 9, 2014, to fewer than 10 confirmed cases per week for 11 consecutive weeks as of October 7, 2015. The main mode of transmission is direct contact with the blood or body fluids of a person with EVD or from the body of a person who died from EVD. However, Ebola virus can persist in the body fluids of survivors during convalescence, which may result in transmission of the virus. The potential for the persistence of Ebola virus in the semen of male survivors raises concern regarding the possible transmission of the virus to sexual partners.

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